Web-based providers of custom products, taking advantage of the capabilities of the World Wide Web and modern Web browsers, operate Web sites that provide online design services for user's desiring to create customized materials from any computer with web access at whatever time and place is convenient to the user. These service providers typically provide their customers with the ability to access the service provider's Web site, view product templates, and use software tools provided by the site to select a template, add images, text, or other content, and perform various modifications to create a customized product design. After the product has been designed by the user, Web-based service providers also typically allow the user to place an order for the production and delivery to the user's home or business of quantities of high quality, printed products of the type that the user is not capable of producing with the printer systems typically connected to most personal computer systems.
Many printed products, such as business cards, letterhead, promotional brochures, holiday cards, and the like, are intended to be distributed or otherwise consumed by the purchasing party and, therefore, will need to be replenished from time to time. In addition, some printing service providers make calendars, sports team schedules, list of holidays, or other similar content available for their customers to incorporate, if desired, into a custom product. Products incorporating this type of content have a particular window of usefulness and become outdated after a period of time. New supplies of the product with up-to-date content need to be ordered periodically. Customers that fail to reorder materials in a timely manner may not have enough products on hand when a need arises or may be required to pay substantial additional shipping or other costs for expedited production and delivery.
If a product vendor sends reorder reminders at all to its customer base, the reminders, like most promotional communications by a vendor to its customer base, are generally in the form of bulk, standardized emails sent to all or a substantial portion of the vendor's customer base with little or no targeting of the specific history or needs of individual customers. Response rates to bulk, general email campaigns are typically low and vendors run the risk of alienating their customer base by repetitively sending email solicitations that are of little or no interest to many of their customers. Even for those customers who are actually interested in the product or other offer being promoted, traditional bulk non-personalized email campaigns typically do not do a good job of engaging the email recipient or of facilitating the ability of the recipient to place an order for the product with a minimum of research and effort.
There is, therefore, a need for a novel system and method for personalized electronic solicitation that identifies relevant customers, presents the customers with the relevant product information needed to make an immediate purchase decision, and facilitates quick and easy ordering by streamlining the customer purchase process.